Cats, Cricket, George and Kirby, Jeremy

On Cricket’s First Birthday: A Nice Long Post About One Of My Cats

Today is Cricket’s first birthday. I officially have only one kitten left (Jeremy is 9 months.). In fact, I just weighed everyone yesterday and she is officially the biggest cat in the house, one ounce bigger than Kirby and five ounces bigger than George. So… it’s not by much.

Cricket at 11 days old, the day her eyes opened.

Cricket came to me in my first orphan kitten foster litter. I was a first time foster mom, and she was a very very tiny sick little girl. All the girls in her litter had the same weird health issues. Two had passed away, not in my care thank god, I was too new to handle that. Nova was the biggest, healthiest kitten, her symptoms came on later and therefore she got on antibiotics earlier. But Cricket was struggling. You can see, in the picture of her at 11 days, she has no muscle or fat in her face, it’s shaped like a triangle, which is a sign of a kitten who is struggling. At one point, she had to be tube fed for two days.

But even with that, she was such a fighter. So much determination, she even tried to “nurse” when being tube fed. For a few weeks, I drove to Langley every day so she could receive subQ fluids. I tried to get as much food in her as possible, the vets wanted her to pee frequently. She was on antibiotics for the first 5 weeks, every time she would finish a cycle, she’d start to run a fever and become lethargic. Finally, at five and a half weeks, she finished a cycle and stayed healthy.

She spent most of her first several weeks tucked into my neck.

Then I had four rambunctious, healthy black kittens on my hands. And it was obvious we were not going to be able to let her go. So we didn’t!

She was always such a funny kitten.

She is such a love bug. She had zero fear of Kirby and George and would snuggle them whether they wanted it or not. They seemed fascinated by her. At this point, we hadn’t taken in Jeremy’s littler, they were still very patient and sweet.

George and his little sister.

So now I have the sweetest little love bug. She wants nothing more than too snuggle me. She has some orphan kitten traits, like her love of humans. She likes to suckle on my t-shirt. She puts her paws on my cheeks, or around my neck, and makes very very gentle biscuits. She “tucks” me in every night when I go to bed. She has fur like satin and will eat ANYTHING. She is what Wm calls “a garbage cat.” I am so happy we kept her and so happy she is in my life.

My little bug.

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books, Cats

Can’t you surprise him in some other way? For example, I’m sure he’d be delightfully taken aback if you cleaned your apartment.

Corner of my desk.

I think I’m spring cleaning. Maybe. The last four days I have spent several consecutive minutes cleaning something, usually to completion. Four days in a row I’ve done this. Would that be considered spring cleaning, and, if not, how many days in a row must I do it before it qualifies. Tomorrow, I’m planning on cleaning out and straightening up the linen closet. I KNOW, RIGHT?

I hope I have not jinxed it by speaking openly about it. I’ve been trying to get rid of things. I’m not going all KonMari here. To be honest, way too many of my possessions “spark joy” in me. Or maybe I’m not quite getting the concept of sparky joy. I think I could brutally clean out my closet. But books, dvd’s, action figures, pens and colored pencils, coloring books, sketch books, fountain pens, tarot decks, bottles of nail polish, board games and cat toys give me way too much joy to get rid of. Isn’t it nice that my music no longer takes up physical space?

I did warn the cats that they had better start sparking joy in me. Ok, no I didn’t. They already do. Now I am going to go look up how to add a black frame around my images to this theme because that’s how much I’ve forgotten. It’s early days.

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Cats, LAPS, photo, Uncategorized

29 Days of Blog – L.A.P.S. BC

   
Today I started volunteering at the Langley Animal Protection Society.  While I don’t live in Langley,  I became familiar with the shelter during their Kitten Roundup a couple of summers ago. They are a no kill shelter with cats and dogs, and my favorite kitten cam, Tiny Kittens, is associated with them. I am now a Cat Care Volunteer. I feed them. Scoop their litter boxes. Clean their beds and play with them. All things I’m very used to doing. 

This kitten is part of the Great Catsby litter. I believe her name is Lindy Hop but I am still trying to learn their names. This room, with the kittens, has a livestream cam, so you can watch them! Lindy Hop, whom you can tell has a lot of floof potential, was the only kitten who could sit still long enough for a photo. I had kittens crawling all over me. Ten, I believe. Let’s see, 4 tabbies, 3 cow kitties, and 3 black. Yup, ten. 

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